This charter was in the course of the twelfth century regarded as so favorable that it was demanded by a great number of towns and burghs; the king was asked for _the customs of Lorris_ (_consuetudines Lauracienses_), and in the space of fifty years they were granted to seven towns, some of them a considerable distance from Orleanness.

The towns which obtained them did not become by this qualification communes properly so called in the special and historical sense of the word; they had no jurisdiction of their own, no independent magistracy; they had not their own government in their hands; the king's officers, provosts, bailiffs, or others, were the only persons who exercised there a real and decisive power.

But the king's promises to the inhabitants, the rights which he authorized them to claim from him, and the rules which he imposed upon his officers in their government, were not concessions which were of no value or which remained without fruit.

As we follow in the course of our history the towns which, without having been raised to communes properly so called, had obtained advantages of that kind, we see them developing and growing in population and wealth, and sticking more and more closely to that kingship from which they had received their privileges, and which, for all its imperfect observance and even frequent violation of promises, was nevertheless accessible to complaint, repressed from time to time the misbehavior of its officers, renewed at need and even extended privileges, and, in a word, promoted in its administration the progress of civilization and the counsels of reason, and thus attached the burghers to itself without recognizing on their side those positive rights and those guarantees of administrative independence which are in a perfect and solidly constructed social fabric the foundation of political liberty.
[Illustration: Insurrection in favor of the Commune at Cambrai----214] Nor was it the kings alone who in the middle ages listened to the counsels of reason, and recognized in their behavior towards their towns the rights of justice.

Many bishops had become the feudal lords of the episcopal city; and the Christian spirit enlightened and animated many amongst them just as the monarchical spirit sometimes enlightened and guided the kings.